


and called for you everywhere

by tanktrilby



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, Time Loop, loosely based on PMMM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3635097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In some worlds it’s you that pulls the trigger. Sometimes Slaine has a gun too, and he’s a just a bit faster, and you never get to see what his eyes look like the second before the bullet hits you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and called for you everywhere

In some worlds it’s you that pulls the trigger. He falls to the ground with a smile on his face like you’ve given him everything he could have asked for. You stand still and feel the sand under your toes, listen to the crash of the waves. You think about how much he loved the sea and something inside you _screams_.

Sometimes Slaine has a gun too, and he’s a just a bit faster, and you never get to see what his eyes look like the second before the bullet hits you. In those worlds, there’s no sea, no beach, and the two of you haven’t blazed like shooting stars through the atmosphere. It’s just you, and him, and his voice echoing through the darkness. You hate those worlds the most because they’re the ones where you leave him alone.

Only in some lifetimes do you get to touch him. He leads rebellions and helps you sneak into the moon base at night, and when the missions are over the two of you lean into each other and breathe, and you listen to his heartbeat. There are days of stasis when you wait together, and you fall asleep in his lap and he strokes your hair absent mindedly. You fight side by side, and he is beautiful and precise, breathtaking as he forges through a line of enemies. When the time comes, you die in each other’s arms, and it’s the happiest you can remember yourself being.

But most of the time, you’re on opposite sides of the war. He lives longer this way, under Versian protection, so you gather yourself up and keep going as well. You want him to be happy, but the thought of watching him die young and broken terrifies you. You call yourself his enemy. You fight. And when the time comes, you always pull the trigger.

(In one lifetime, something great and terrible moved inside you and you didn’t shoot. His eyes were tired and the smirk he wore felt like glass shards in your throat. But you didn’t shoot. Not when you could feel the phantom press of his smile against your lips, taste his laughter. Hear the way he sounded when he read aloud from poetry books.

You kept him alive, and watched him wither into nothingness. Met his dead eyes over a chess board, and vowed to never make this mistake again.)

There are numbers and statistics inside your head, but you don’t want to know how many times you failed. You wonder how it is that despite your lauded brilliance, your quicksilver logic, you never managed to save him even once.

You are hatefully aware of your own uselessness. You count Slaine’s smiles and keep them close to your heart, and ignore everything else.

* * *

It's another new world, and Inaho fits badly in it, awkward in the fear and tiredness he's carried over from the ones before. As a child he's resilient, preparing himself for the inevitable in a way that has always scared his sister.  _This time,_ he thinks.  _This will be the last._ He's thought it a hundred, a thousand times before. 

He grows up, punctuated occasionally by flashes of memory so vivid they make him gasp. He sees the moon, crumbled to pieces, and the world reduced to its bare bones. He dreams of growing up as a soldier and being terribly heartsick. He remembers the specific curve of a smile, eyes a shade of blue he hasn’t ever seen anywhere else, and a name to go with them: _Slaine Troyard._

By the time he’s in high school he’s settled into his skin; he sits at the back of his classes and spends entire lessons looking out the window, breezing through every exam. He has _friends,_ which takes him by surprise- they are kind and boisterous, letting exaggerated groans when he comes on top in every class, including him in conversations when they have no reason to. Each act of kindness wrings a desperate sort of gratitude in him, masked by his now-permanent poker face. It’s a gentler world, a world full of second chances. Inaho aches to share it with Slaine, and knows he’ll see him, he can feel it in his bones.

He’s right, as he often is: in his second year of high school Slaine arrives in a gust of cherry blossoms and causes a stir in the neighborhood. Inaho hears rumors of a fair-haired blue-eyed third year who transferred in and clenches his fists tight. He’s been patient for so long, telling himself over and over it was fate, but now that he finally _knows_ where Slaine is it’s shockingly hard to hold back. He feels like running through the streets shouting Slaine’s name. Suddenly, he can feel time slipping through his fingertips, and getting the data, making sure, feels completely insignificant.

Inaho is painstakingly thorough, and his plans almost always go right. He chooses his time carefully and marches into the library, and stops dead at the sight of Slaine.

Slaine looks like he was born to be in this soft world, his cloud of hair catching the sunlight slanting in through the windows, his fingers long and delicate on the pages of his book. He’s so familiar and also not: the set of his shoulders is gentler, neither caved in or hiked aggressively high. Inaho watches him turn a page and realizes it all over again: this was a world _made_ for Slaine. A world where Slaine fits in perfectly.

A world where he doesn’t need Inaho to protect him.

Inaho doesn’t realize he’s begun to turn away until a pair of wide blue eyes catch his. “Inaho-san?”

It’s been seventeen years since he last heard that voice. The shock of it holds Inaho still, his eyes very wide.

Slaine is half-standing, expression distraught. “Are you alright? I’m sorry, I don’t know what made me say that, I didn’t mean to startle you. I think I must have seen you somewhere before, even though we’ve never been introduced. I hadn’t realized I knew your name. _Is_ that your name, I wonder?”

Electricity buzzes along Inaho’s skin and he’s glad, so very glad that none of his emotions show on his face. Before he can cover up his blunder -he has several dozen explanations on the tip of his tongue, each more logical than the next- he staggers, and watches in slow motion as Slaine’s eyes grow wider, his pale clever hand reach out.

“I’m fine,” Inaho huffs, badly startled. He should pay better attention to what he’s doing, but- it’s been so long. Slaine is alive and whole and in front of him, hands fluttering like agitated birds as he tries to help, and Inaho can’t stop staring. Slaine had never remembered his name before, and he- he-

Slaine makes a questioning sound and Inaho casts about for something to say to get the worry out of his eyes. “I’m fine,” he ends up repeating, awkwardly. “I lost my balance.”

Slaine seems to accept this. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

The chair pushes through the carpet as Slaine draws it out. It’s the one next to his, and the legs knock against each other as they move.

“Thank you, Slaine-san,” he says, taking his seat. His heart thunders in his ears; he feels vaguely sick.

Slaine, when he dares to look back at him, has wide eyes, mouth open in a surprised o. “Do we…?” he says uncertainly.

He looks good in his uniform, Inaho notices. It’s not the first timeline they went to school together, but they never got to talk like this, with the soft background chatter of the school, the world alive and thriving around them. This world doesn’t need them to survive.

“It’s a very small town, Slaine-san,” he says finally. “I think it’s inevitable we would have heard of each other. But if you would like me to introduce myself, my name is Kaizuka Inaho.”

It’s a long speech; perhaps the longest he’s ever spoken in one go. It’s worth the slight breathlessness to see the pleased curl of Slaine’s lips as he nods.

“And I’m Slaine Troyard. Nice to meet you, Inaho-san.”

Inaho allows himself to smile back, just a little. He says, “What are you reading?” and it feels like a thousand beginnings, the road stretching out golden and promising under their feet.

**Author's Note:**

> //blames [Victoria](http://harklightofficial.tumblr.com/) for all of this and runs away
> 
> no my apologies about the shifting narrative style, I couldn't get them to mesh :( 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
